Local News

Four safety patrollers from Chiefland Elementary School stopped by the Suwannee Valley Rotary Club Thursday to announce their upcoming cake auction to raise money for the group’s annual trip to Washington, D.C. next summer.

The auction will be held Thursday, Dec. 15, at 6 p.m. in the Chiefland High School cafeteria.

The Levy County Commission decided to put a nine-month moratorium on any rules allowing marijuana dispensariess into the county.

At the same meeting on Tuesday, the board voted to retain John Meeks, of Bronson, R-District 1, as its chair for a third year and decided to switch the vice chair from Mike Joyner of Morriston, R-District 3, to Rock Meeks or Chiefland, R-District 2.

The Citrus County Chronicle has received several letters and Sound Off calls from readers concerned about the Sabal Trail pipeline’s effect on the environment.

Those concerns include: excessive noise from a Marion County compressor station to be built in 2020, potential gas line explosions, possible fuel leakage or spillage and the destruction of established oak and pine trees.

So when federal agencies sign off on the 515-mile Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline through Alabama, Georgia and Florida, people like 30-year Dunnellon resident Janet Barrow don’t sit back and take their word for it.

“I’ve been watching this project for three years plus,” Barrow said. “I open my mouth and tell as many people as I can.”

The Cedar Key community lost its holiday joy on Wednesday morning when word spread that prayers were needed for a family.

Authorities confirmed that Jacob Solano, 18, a senior at Cedar Key School, died when his gun discharged while he was hog hunting on Black Point Island off Shell Mound.

The loss is devastating to the school which has only 14 students in the Class of 2017 and Solano was one of four young men in the class. When students, who are on Thanksgiving break,, return to school on Monday, there will be grief counselors available.

In less than 30 years, 3,000-year-old oyster reefs off Florida’s Big Bend coastline have declined by 88 percent, according to University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers.

For residents who depend on the fishing grounds and other coastal resources protected by these reefs, it’s a worrying trend.